Mukwonago Muppets in print

Here's a sneak peek at Larry Hanson's column from next week's Mukwonago Chief.

His football fantasy involves Muppets

Lips LaBelle is not your typical fantasy football player.

He is not really your typical football fan, either.

But, there he was during his usual 2 to 7 p.m. shift on WKTI (94.5 FM) last week discussing the Mukwonago Muppets, his entry in the station’s fantasy football league. Between spins of the ubiquitous Delilah song (it’s actually about a real person), the rock star song by Nickelback, the going home song from Doughtry and Gwen Stefani looking for her sweet escape, there was discussion of fantasy football. And I hadn’t even switched the station to the sports-talk outfit on the AM dial.

Nothing unusual there. Many, many Americans discuss their fantasy teams at work, with strangers and with loved ones who probably couldn’t care less.

However, LaBelle, who has lived in Mukwonago for the last 18 years, had to have traffic reporter Debbie Lazaga explain to him what a bye week is. To most hard-core fantasy players, a team’s bye week is vital information, along the lines of the third-string long snapper.
For Labelle, it’s a confounding mystery that made him question why he needed another quarterback when he already had Jake Delhomme.

He is the exact opposite of a fantasy football guru.

“I have no interest in it,” LaBelle said.

Instead, he was given a team to amuse his co-workers. “Let’s get the guy who doesn’t have the sports gene play in our league.”

Of course, that has already potentially hampered his squad, which LaBelle said will open the season with five straight road games (“We’re hoping to get the stadium sound system revamped by the time of our first home game.”). He traded Larry Fitzgerald to a co-worker for Mark Clayton and a lug (24 to 30) of peaches. While LaBelle may have gotten less talent back in the trade, he may have also gotten the last laugh. The peaches he asked for cost approximately $39 a lug.

Growing up in Burlington, LaBelle was a member of the school’s pep band. It would have seemed a natural for him to end up with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who also graduated from Burlington High School. That wasn’t why LaBelle wanted him on the Muppets, however.

“I wanted to get him so we could get Carrie Underwood (who Romo has been linked to romantically) to sing at the games,” LaBelle said. “In Little League tryouts, I was the last kid in the throw and catch line and I didn’t get drafted.”

That kind of soured him on team sports.

Nowadays, his recreational pursuits include downhill skiing and racquetball (because he doesn’t have to chase the ball when he misses it.)

He describes his participation in the league as sort of the control portion of a science experiment, seeing if he can do better than the people who are “obsessed” with fantasy football.

His draft strategy was to not actually have a strategy. His league had an auto-draft, where the computer picks players based on a fantasy player’s rankings before the draft, or lack thereof.
“It’s a lot like how I do my lottery tickets, a quick pick,” LaBelle said.

He figured once the computer was done picking his players, he would be done with this silly whim by his co-workers. He has no clue what he is in for.

After the draft, he asked one of his co-workers if he had won. They had to explain to him that the season goes for 17 weeks.

“How do they keep up with all of this?” LaBelle said. “I think I’ve scratched the underbelly of some secret cabal. People at work used to smoke.”

Now, it looks like the Muppets might be the ones who get smoked.

Let’s hope not. Come on, Mukwonago, get behind your team. Well your other team. I know the Indians are still No. 1 in this community, but there is nothing that says there isn’t room in your hearts for the Muppets.